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Friday, November 05, 2021
Review Roundup: THE VISITOR Opens at The Public Theater- The Critics Weigh In!
www.broadwayworld.com
: Widowed and living alone, Walter is a college professor whose life has lost a sense of purpose. When Tarek, a vivacious drummer, and Zainab, an iron-willed jewelry maker, enter his life in the most unexpected circumstances, Walter is swept up into their struggle to stay in an America that they have made their home, but seeks to cast them out. Tony winner Daniel Sullivan directs this unforgettable new musical about friends and lovers caught between two worlds.
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Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect this. All of the reviews can be summed up as “great team, bad project”. This musical has been in very public trouble for about a month, delaying previews by a week to “address” racism concerns and losing its lead actor during previews for unknown reasons, but a plot like this was always going to draw criticism in this day and age. They could have adapted any other movie, hell they could have even done a new work about refugees, but instead this musical centers a white man in a story that’s supposed to be about refugees. There is no doubt that the team assembled is an absolute powerhouse of people in every single department, but this was never going to work. This plotline is inherently racist and there’s no way to get around that, and I won’t even get into how the music centers a djembe without any sign of respect for the power that drum holds. Hopefully at minimum this is a learning lesson for the team at The Public, but the damage has already been done, and hopefully this failure shows the theatre community that centering refugees in their own stories is now more important than ever.
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